A blog to communicate, discuss, and advocate for the civil rights and important role Small Flock Poultry Farmers can play (and should play) in Canadian Society.
Small Flockers are on the side of justice & truth, and against privilege & power. Unfortunately, the more we compromise with privilege and power, the more we reduce the capacity for truth and justice.

Friday, March 7, 2014

430,000 New Jobs for Ontario

For example, the employment rate for males in Ontario, 15 to 64 yrs. old, seasonally adjusted has been trending down for the last 38 years. Is it time that our government react?

Here is one sure-fire method to create between 10,000 and 430,000 new jobs in
Ontario, almost immediately with a 1-page letter from Premier Wynne at virtually no
direct cost to the government.

As Ontario's Minister of Agriculture, Kathleen Wynne has the authority
under Section 13.(1) of the Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Act to issue a government directive on
agriculture policy to the various agriculture boards and commissions, including
the Farm Products Marketing Commission.

What do you think it would cost for 1 sheet of paper and an hour of the
Premier's time to write a letter so as to create up to 430,000 new jobs for
Ontario? Let's say it's $125 for her time, and $2.00 for a sheet of
paper, envelope, and stamp for a total of $127.00 which is 0.03 cents per
job created.

But we're ahead of ourselves.

Let's look at three possible options available to Minister Wynne.

Option
#1: Small Flockers are Banned

Currently, everybody in Ontario can raise up to 300 meat birds per year
(provided your local zoning permits raising chickens) under the small flock
quota exemption.

In this option, Minister Wynne orders the banning of small flock poultry
farmers and the cancellation of the small flock quota exemption.

Since small flockers are already tyrannized and oppressed, what's a little
more abuse in the grand scheme of this country we call Canada?

Figure 1: Small flock size and number in Ontario
Source: Chicken Farmers of Ontario

Figure 1 is a chart I received that was originally issued by CFO. It
shows the number of small flocks in Ontario, and the size of those flocks. In
another CFO
publication, CFO states that most small flockers grow for their personal
consumption, and 2/3rd of all small flocks have 50 birds or less.
However, there is strength in numbers, for there were 23,560 small flocks in
Ontario in 2010, while there were just 1,026 quota-holders that produce factory farmed foul in Ontario.

Statistically analyzing this data, we determine that small flockers raised
1.005 Million birds in 2010, while quota-bearing chicken farms produced about
192.7 Million birds, so small flockers had just 0.52% of the Ontario grower
market. The average flock size for small flockers was 42.7 birds.
The average quota chicken farm raises 187,813 birds per year. The
smallest available quota farm CFO permits without special permission has 14,000
quota units, so with 6.5 grow cycles per year, the minimum factory farmed foul is 91,000 chickens
per year.

If Premier Wynne ordered that small flockers were to be totally banned, the
1.005 Million birds currently produced by small flockers would need to be
replaced by the factory farmed foul
quota-based system, requiring an extra 5.4 average quota-based chicken factories
to be built. An extra 5 families get a job, while 23,560 small flock
farmers are put out of work, for a net job loss of 23,554 jobs in Ontario.At $127 for the Minister’s 1-page letter,
that’s $0.0054 per job lost.

I’m sure CFO supports this option, giving them a guaranteed 100% monopoly,
instead of the 99.48% monopoly they currently enjoy and jealously guard.Therefore let’s call this “CFO’s Plan”.
While Option #1 is good for CFO, it isn't such a good idea for everybody
else in Ontario.

Option
#2: Small Flockers are Encouraged & Set Free

Premier Wynne could instruct the FPMC to order Chicken Farmers of Ontario
("CFO") to increase the quota exemption for small flock poultry
farmers from 300 to 2,000 birds per year per property address. This is what
Small Flock Poultry Farmers of Canada has been lobbying for during the last
year.

I suggest, so that CFO and the #ChickenMafia don't cry and whine forever,
that a hard limit be set on the small flockers, with an aggregate total maximum
for all quota-exempt production to be 10% or less of the total chicken produced
in Ontario. As small flockers expand in their new role, CFO would monitor
it, and once the 10% maximum is reached, no more quota-exempt permits.
You can either choose to be quota-exempt, or quota-based; but no double dipping
on both sides of the issue would be allowed. The quota-based factory farmed foul would still have
90% market share guaranteed for themselves.
A 10% market share in 2010 would be 19.27 Million birds per year that would
be ear-marked for small flockers. At the historical average of 42.65
birds per average small flock in 2010, we would need a total of 454,125 small
flock farms. Since we already have 23,560 small flock farms, we therefore
enable the creation of 430,461 new jobs for Ontario.

That shift of chicken production to small flockers would be equivalent to
103 quota-based chicken factories. In 2010, 35 chicken farmers left the
quota-bearing factory farm business (ie. farmers die, retire, move away, etc.),
so at that rate of natural attrition, the 103 vacancies to make room for small
flockers would take about 3 years to occur naturally without anybody being
forced out, if we assume natural turnover. It is highly unlikely that
small flockers would expand that quickly, more likely it would take longer;
possibly as long as 10 to 20 years to grow into their regained civil
rights. Therefore this attrition and transfer from quota to quota-exempt
does not seem to have a logistics or scheduling problem.

What would happen if small flockers exceed this historic flock size of 42.65
birds per farm per year?
If all small flock farmers increased to 2,000 birds per year, that 19.27
Million birds allocated for small flockers would require just 9,685 small flock
farms. Since there are already 23,560 small flock farms as of 2010, that
would be a job loss of 13,875 small flock jobs, for a total job loss of 13,978
(quota and quota exempt).
If instead, we were to make this reassignment of chicken production to be
job neutral, we need to keep the current 23,560 small flockers employed,
plus add an additional 103 small flockers to make up for the quota-based
farmers who will eventually disappear, so the quota-exemption limit should be
818 birds per year per small flock farm; which is better than the current 300
bird limit.

Therefore depending on the average number of birds raised per small flock
farms, there could be an end result somewhere between losing 13,978 jobs, to
job parity, to gaining an additional 430,461 jobs. Either way, the cost
to implement is $127.00 as a 1-time charge.

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